The English maritime imaginary is intertwined with the notion of an ‘Island nation’ intrinsic to imagined communities. A maritime imaginary is invoked to shore up a nostalgic ideal of English national identity, as England attempts to re-position itself in a changing world order amidst national and international tensions.

English identity has traditionally assumed interchangeability with Britishness within the British Isles, with Wales and Scotland on the fringes. During and after Brexit , ‘Englishness’ came to the fore underpinned by nostalgia and grievance about England’s place in the UK following devolution.Representations of the maritime have been used to reinforce colonial sentiments of national identity and borders, reinforcing fantasies of a ‘them versus ‘us’ dynamic, with the sea used as an emotional container for anxieties about change and intersecting crises at home and abroad.

However, for many, nostalgic narratives of England as a heroic maritime nation that ‘rules the waves’, create feelings of shame about the history and legacy of English identity as a colonial power, linked to slavery and the plundering of other countries' resources. Shame is linked to feelings of misrecognition, and the exclusion from an imagined English community linked to the history of naval power. The maritime imaginary can also conjure other benign images related to memories of seaside, the arts, literature and music.

Can a new maritime imaginary be developed to enable a more fluid and inclusive conception of English identity and nation that goes beyond either/or conceptions of nation and the maritime?

In this roundtable panel, we draw on psychosocial, postcolonial, film and community practice perspectives to explore the feelings and emotions stirred up by images of the maritime and shifting conceptions of English identity and the potential shaping of a new more inclusive maritime imaginary.